Absolution and Its Discontents
by Albus Paulson
Summary: Frodo Baggins was reasonably sure that he had heard at least the basics of his Uncle Bilbo's adventure, with the dwarves and the dragon. That reasonable assumption went out the window when he meets a most unexpected person at Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party. In which the dead never died, the truth-tellers lied, and the story goes on anyway.


Absolution and Its Discontents

A/N: In some ways, this is a fix-it so common to the rest of Hobbit fanon. I did my best to keep it as close to canon as possible, though I may not have succeeded. Read and enjoy!

* * *

It was the day of a great Party – Bilbo Baggin's eleventy-first, if you had to know – and Frodo Baggins was most intent on knowing why today, of all days, Bilbo was holed up in his study, book open in front of him, ink drying on his quill pen.

"You stay out of there! That's private!"

Frodo had no idea why good old Uncle Bilbo would be so protective of his little manuscript, his recording of that mad journey he'd gone on. After all, Frodo had heard all the stories growing up: the trolls, the goblin-caves, that weird creature Gollum, running from the wargs, travelling through Mirkwood and getting stuck for weeks in the Elvenking's dungeons, the barrels, the dragon, the battle, and coming home to the Shire again. Frodo had heard it all as a fauntling. Most of the Shire had heard those tales by now. Bilbo Baggins had had sixty years to acculturate Hobbiton, and the rest of the Shire, to Mad Baggins of Bag End.

Bilbo had managed to outlive most of his nasty relatives, and most hobbits in general, in reaching the age of eleventy-one. Very few hobbits now living remembered the Fell Winter, namely Bilbo and a handful of Tooks. Being a gentlehobbit, and a book-obsessed one at that, with his great age Bilbo had rather naturally fallen into the role of the sole historian and chronicler of which the Shire could boast.

What more could one expect from Mad Baggins? Gone off with a troop of Dwarves, folk said, and never was the same again.

Frodo was young, of course. He'd not lived through the history Bilbo had. In private Bilbo had spoken to him about the history behind his adventure; the Elves in his stories had lived lives far beyond the span of men, even into the First Age over six thousand years earlier, and even the rowdy, filthy Dwarves Bilbo named with such fondness had participated in the great battles and events of the last two centuries. There were at least six veterans of Battle of the Dimrill Dale – Azanulbizar, Bilbo had called it, only hastily calling it by its Westron name – in Bilbo's company. Even the Shire had heard of the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. Bilbo himself had lived history, being the last living being to have riddled with a great dragon, not that he liked to talk about that.

Anyway, Frodo was young, and he didn't like being excluded from anything. It just made him… _nosy_. It was the day of a Party, and for once, in the Shire, Frodo had a chance to use all that Tookish curiosity.

After all, at Bilbo's Party, there would be _Dwarves._

* * *

Frodo had seen three Dwarves helping to set up one of the tents, early in the afternoon, but had been distracted by Gandalf's imminent arrival. Now, much later in the evening, he'd not spotted any of them at all.

" – Three, _monstrous,_ Trolls!" Bilbo's voice echoed three tents over. The Troll-story, then, telling it to a new generation of Hobbit fauntlings. Bilbo wouldn't be Mad Baggins of Bag End if he wasn't getting them started young on the ideas of adventures.

Frodo was half-listening to the old tale as he went for a half-pint of the Gaffer's homebrewed ale, and was distracted enough to trip over a pair of heavy, solid boots.

Dwarf-boots.

Attached to Dwarf _feet._

"Sorry, sorry, Master Dwarf," Frodo stammered. He looked up to see a pair of amused brown eyes in a smiling face. The dwarf's hair was unbraided, and his dark beard was unornamented but for a single bead of silver and sapphire gathering it to a point in the middle of his chest.

The dwarf smiled and raised his own drink – a pint of the same homebrew – and said, "No matter, little hobbit." He looked searchingly at Frodo's face. "You're Bilbo's nephew, aren't you?"

"Frodo Baggins, son of Drogo, at your service," and Frodo bowed.

The dwarf laughed again. "I see our Burglar taught you well."

"Our Burglar?" Frodo asked. "You were one of –"

"One of the thirteen on that damned fool Quest?" The smile hadn't left the dwarf's face, but there was something sharp in his eyes.

"I'm not sure my uncle would have called it that, but yes."

"Oh, he called it that, and worse besides. You think he's a firecracker now. If anything age has softened him some."

Frodo sat in the empty chair beside the dwarf.

"In fact," the dwarf continued, "I've always wanted to know what Bilbo told all those hobbits back home about our adventure. Knowing him, he probably turned our adventure, full of mud, blood, no bathing and sleeping on the ground for months on end into a children's tale."

Frodo had to laugh. "Yes, he did."

"Good man, your uncle. Got us out of a tight spot more than a time or two. If he hadn't been on the Quest, I'd wager that we would have been eaten by those trolls before Gandalf had a chance to save us. Or that we would still be wasting away in that damned Elvenking's dungeons." The dwarf swigged his ale. "He never got his due reward. Still hasn't."

"Whenever anyone needles him about riches, he always says, _It was one small chest, not dozens, and it _still_ reeks of Troll_."

The dwarf sniggered into his mug. "Fair imitation, that."

"Thank you, Master Dwarf."

"Now, none of that Master Dwarf business. I'm young yet, only one hundred and thirty-eight." The wild smile was back. "Kíli, son of Dis, at your service."

At that, Frodo dropped his mug onto the grass in shock.

Kíli blinked. "What did I say? You know Dwarves live much longer than Men or hobbits, right? I was sure that Bilbo would have taught you that much."

"He said you were dead," Frodo croaked. "In the battle. The Battle of Five Armies, he called it."

"Oh," Kíli deflated. "That."

Bilbo's words swarmed in Frodo's head – _died defending their uncle with shield and body, but all was in vain – they laid Thorin Oakenshield to rest with the Arkenstone upon his breast and Orcrist upon his tomb, where it still yet lies – _as did the horrible sorrowful look Bilbo always wore at this point in his story. Bilbo wept, even in front of children, when he told them of the deaths of the great king and his heirs.

"I think," said Kíli's small voice, "I might know why he told the story that way."

"He lied," Frodo gasped. "Did he lie about anything else in his tale? The trolls, the Eagles –"

"No, lad, that is, I think, all true. Not that I've heard it from him, of course, but I think I know where the story would diverge from what happened."

"Why? Why would Bilbo do that?"

Kíli smiled, but the joy was gone. "Authorial kindness, I suppose."

Frodo dropped his mug again. "Kinder to say you died than to tell the truth?"

"Not me. My uncle."

Silence.

"Thorin didn't die in the battle, did he?"

"No. He's still alive and well, actually. Two hundred and fifty-five years old and as hale as ever. My brother is with him, of course. Fíli. He wasn't too happy that I came to the Shire without him, I'm sure. All of us loved your uncle dearly." Kíli winked. "Still do, I think."

But _why?_

"What did Bilbo tell you about the Arkenstone, er, let's call it a _fiasco_?"

"That he took it from the dragon's hoard, and gave it to Bard and the Elvenking as a bargaining chip to use with Thorin Oakenshield."

"All right, that much happened."

"Did Thorin really shake Uncle Bilbo over the battlements and call him a descendant of rats?"

Kíli winced. "That much happened. Unfortunately. Watching that was enough to snap me out of whatever greedy haze the gold had me in. Fíli too. And Bofur almost took Dwalin's arm off in an attempt to rescue Bilbo."

"And your uncle banished Bilbo from the mountain."

"Also true."

"And Dain from the Iron Hills came to Thorin's defense in the battle."

"Also true. My cousin is of stout heart and few words. Definitely not a dreamer. Fighting battles, he's good at. Probably didn't have the imagination that our Quest would ever succeed, and didn't know what else to do but help in the eleventh hour."

"The Battle happened, and the goblins were defeated."

"Also true, at great cost. No more than half of our defending armies survived the battle and the winter after it. We had to burn their bodies, like at Azanulbizar."

"But Bilbo said," Frodo coughed, "that you died, and your uncle died holding Bilbo's hand."

"Obviously not true, as I sit here before you. And Bilbo invited me here, so he knew I yet lived, at the very least. Though I don't think Bilbo expected any hobbit to recognize me, or my name, as one of the Princes of the line of Durin."

Frodo nodded.

"Well, Thorin did apologize after the battle. He was grievously wounded, and we didn't know if my brother would be King Fíli in the morning. I was wounded too," here Kíli pulled up his right trouser leg to reveal a long, thick scar from knee to ankle, "Bolg's pet warg did not survive, I assure you. But I was, in any case, in the same tent with my uncle, and I heard his apology to Bilbo."

"But why would Bilbo _lie_?"

Kíli's mustache twitched. "My uncle was dying," he said. "It is easy to forgive a dying man. It is less easy to forgive a living one."

Frodo frowned. "But Thorin was _alive_," he said.

"Yes, alive and able to attempt to make up for the evil wrought by his deeds. There were still bruises on Bilbo's neck and arms, remember. My uncle did that to him. _My uncle_," Kíli spat, "behaved like orc scum to someone he cherished. I didn't forgive him myself for _years_ for what he did to Bilbo. It is easy to forgive someone who cannot hurt you anymore, lad, but much harder to mend a relationship."

Silence.

"My uncle sends letters, you know." Kíli said. "Never returned. Sixty years Bilbo has been ignoring old King Under the Mountain."

"He burns them," Frodo whispered in horror. "I watched him do it and never had the heart to ask who they were from. All these years."

"The rest of us, he answers. Even Bofur, who has never been able to read too well. Even me, and I barely have the patience to read a letter, let alone write one."

"What did Thorin say?" Frodo's voice broke. "In the healing tents. Dying, as you said."

"He said everything he could say. That Bilbo was right all along, that he'd wronged Bilbo, that he'd been a complete dunce, and that," Kíli coughed, and suddenly a very different voice came from his mouth, "_if more of us valued food and cheer over hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world_."

"But…"

"Wasn't that enough?" Kíli said. He smiled wanly. "No. Some things can't be fixed by words, lad. Bilbo cried, holding my uncle's hand. Got tears all over the bandages. I'll never forget what he said, though." He coughed again, and this time a fair imitation of Bilbo's voice came from Kíli. "_I want to forgive you. I want to say everything is better, but that would be a lie. I'm still bruised from your grip, Thorin. Even in greed those words were yours. Your lips cursed me and your eyes told me I was warg dung on your shoe. As badly as I want to forgive you, I can't. Not until I'm not hurting anymore. Not until you're not the same man who said those things to me."_

"I've never known my uncle to hold a grudge," Frodo said. "He might be old Mad Baggins, but he's still a hobbit, and I didn't think he would have it in him to hold something, even something terrible, over someone for _sixty years_."

"They were close," Kíli said. "Closer even than Balin and Bilbo, or Bofur and BilboBilbo was to Balin, or Bofur. I'd always see them within a few feet of each other, at least after the whole disaster with the goblins. Their bedrolls were always as close to each other as Fíli's and mine were. That gold did something to my uncle. I don't know if it was from the proximity to the dragon all those years, or what, but it made him so much worse than it made all the rest of us. It brought out something dark and evil inside of him, but it was still him. It was still my uncle who did that to his closest friend."

"I never knew – not _any_ of that."

"Bilbo would never want to speak of it," Kíli said softly. "It probably burns like acid to know he was that hurt by someone so dear, and hurt them right back by tearing himself away. It probably burns worse, knowing that he instigated the whole thing by stealing the Arkenstone."

There was a long silence.

"I wish I could say I understood," Frodo said at last.

"I was there, and I still don't understand what my uncle was thinking. He did the only thing he could do, I think, and mercifully he accepted Bilbo's words, and didn't press Bilbo to stay the winter inside the Mountain with the rest of the Company; but it was truly a mess, with no easy solution. I know that Bilbo has spent sixty years trying to put, if not his adventure, the King Under the Mountain out of sight and out of mind."

"You should see how sad he looks when he talks about Thorin dying. Like his heart is being wrenched from his chest."

"It was," Kíli said, "And Thorin did it."

At that point, conversation had to cease, as a giant firework-dragon raced above their heads. Kíli ducked behind his chair, and Frodo ran to find Bilbo.

"Uncle, duck, _dragon – "_

The old hobbit looked unflapped and waved a negligent hand. "A dragon? Nonsense, there's not been a dragon in the Shire in hundreds of years –"

But Frodo did get him to duck, and then – when the dragon exploded into sparks over Bywater – Frodo looked into Bilbo's eyes and said, "We're going to have a talk after the party."

"Yes, yes, of course –"

But then it was time for a speech, and then Bilbo disappeared in the middle of it, to the utter astonishment of all. All, except Kíli.

* * *

When Frodo managed to escape from the rather disturbed party guests, he returned to Bag End to find Gandalf, sitting in the dim firelight and muttering to his own pipe smoke.

"He's gone to stay with the Elves," Gandalf said.

"Not yet, he hasn't," said a voice from the doorway. Kíli stepped out of the shadows.

"Now that is someone I haven't seen in a long time," Gandalf said. "I hadn't known Bilbo invited you, Kíli."

"He invited the whole Company, except one, as usual," the dwarf retorted, "I was just the only one able to come. There has been no word from Balin, Oin, and Ori in several years, but of the rest, Fíli is too busy helping Uncle. Same with Dwalin. Bombur is too fat to move and Bifur and Bofur won't leave him. Gloin is in the Iron Hills on business, Nori is never where he's expected, and Dori won't leave Erebor without hearing from Ori. So, that left me, and here I am, but I carry all their goodwill for Bilbo, and even for you, wizard."

Gandalf laughed. "Sharp as ever, I see."

"Too sharp to be fooled by the Elvish nonsense you're trying to fob off on Bilbo's nephew."

"Yes, well –"

"Gandalf, where is Bilbo going?"

Silence.

"I wasn't lying when I said Bilbo was going to stay with the Elves," Gandalf finally said. "But he made no concrete plans as to when he was going to stay with Lord Elrond, precisely. I believe he intends to go farther East, one last time."

"You mean the Mountain, don't you?"

"Yes," Gandalf said.

"I believe I'll be catching up to him on the road," Kíli said. "If I can't catch one old hobbit, I'll never hear the end of it from Fíli."

"You knew?" Frodo rounded on Kíli. "All that conversation about Bilbo and your uncle, and you knew he was going back to the Mountain?"

"He may not go to the Mountain. Bard's son Bain is King in Dale, still. He may stay with him. The men of Dale revere Bilbo for his efforts with the Arkenstone. I think it is more likely that those of us from the Company will visit him there, than it is that Bilbo goes into Erebor." Kíli brightened. "I do hope he does, though. We've cleaned it up and it doesn't smell like dragon anymore. Even though we never quite got the scorch marks off the front gates."

"Your sense of humor is as ever, master dwarf," Gandalf grumbled.

"I'm quite sure that wasn't a compliment, wizard, but many thanks indeed."

Gandalf had to chuckle at that.

Kíli turned and bowed to Frodo. "I hope we will meet again, Master Baggins, but the road calls."

"Of course." As Kili stumped away, Frodo called after him. "Take care of my uncle, will you?"

Kili laughed. "He's never needed that much care, lad, even as fragile as you hobbits are." His face grew more serious. "Take care of yourself, though. I know Bilbo used that ring of his just now to disappear, even though I can see Bilbo's ring in your pocket, and hand now. I know it did strange things to Bilbo's mind in Mirkwood and in those damned Elven dungeons. Take care."

"I will," Frodo said, and stood on Bag End's porch, watching the stout dwarf fade into the shadows of the Hobbiton night.

"I believe," Gandalf said behind him, "that we have not heard that last of this tale."

They hadn't, though it had taken seventeen years before the story continued.

* * *

Frodo was fifty years old and running for his life from Ringwraiths. This was certainly not the adventure he'd had in mind when Bilbo told him, all those years ago, about the trolls sneezing on him.

Well, Frodo wasn't doing much running. Being stabbed by a Morgul blade had put a damper on that plan. Riding on a horse, accompanied by an elf, was a much better plan under the circumstances.

When he passed into unconsciousness at the Ford of Bruinen, his last thoughts were, _This story doesn't end here._

And it didn't. He woke at Rivendell to find himself healing and his friends alive, to his great relief. The Ring, though, weighed on his mind. Frodo had never forgotten what Kili had told him, seventeen years before, of the ring's effects on Bilbo. Frodo had the good sense to fear the ring, and fear even more what it could do.

The Council of Elrond was a shock in more ways than one. The Gondorian man who was not afraid of the ring, and wanted to use it, was one; the other was an extremely old dwarf who seemed more afraid of it than Frodo was. His face was a twisted mask of horror from the moment he saw the Ring, which only faded when Frodo put it away.

After the Council, when the Fellowship of the Ring had been declared and named and yet no more than that, the participants broke for lunch. The grumpy man of Gondor went off by himself, but the elderly dwarf came and sat next to Frodo without any introduction.

Frodo noticed his finery – dark blue velvet, ticked in silver stars, matching his eyes – and the silver circlet around his snow-white hair. His beard was long enough to tuck into his belt, unbraided and undecorated, save for one very familiar-looking silver and sapphire bead.

The old dwarf's eyes met Frodo's as they ate in silence.

Frodo coughed. "Hail, Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thrain, King Under the Mountain," he said softly, with a bow from his seated position.

Thorin started, then returned the bow. "Hail Frodo Baggins," he croaked. "Though I must add I am not King Under the Mountain anymore. That honor goes to my sister-son, Fili, son of Dis, of the line of Durin."

"I met Kili, his brother, some years ago," Frodo said.

"Seventeen years ago, to be precise." At Frodo's raised eyebrow, Thorin added, "Kili told me when he returned to Erebor from the Shire. After an extended stop in Dale, which I should have expected."

"I see." Frodo chewed on a bit of roll. "May I ask what brings you to Rivendell, my lord?"

Thorin's mouth twitched in a crude approximation of a smile. "Imagine, a Baggins calling me _my lord_. Will wonders never cease." The smile faded. "Perhaps it was just that one Baggins who never knew what to call me, and settled on my given name."

Frodo did not know what he could say to that. He was certain, however, that Kili's imitation of his uncle all those years ago had been spot-on.

"In any case, I am two hundred and seventy-five years old. I was king for almost two hundred of those years, Master Baggins, and I grew tired. As insufferable as I was, when I was last a guest in Rivendell, I came here, remembering how much comfort one dear to me drew from this place. I hope to collect my strength here, and go unto the halls of my fathers when I am called."

"He is here, too, my lord," Frodo said quietly. "Doing much the same thing, in fact."

Thorin's expression was stony. "I did not know this when I journeyed here. I have not seen or spoken to him in eighty years." His eyebrows twitched. "Eighty years, less one month, actually."

Silence. Frodo did not say that Bilbo had told him Thorin was dead, that Bilbo had only mentioned Thorin in the context of the adventure and nothing more. The old dwarf might have heard it from Kili already, but that was no reason for Frodo to add to his pain. And he was in pain; pain bespoke every worried line on his face, and the stoop to his broad shoulders. Even his fingers, old and knotted, were twisted on themselves in pain.

Clearly this old dwarf, one made by Mahal to endure, had endured such pain for a long, long time. Physical or mental, or both, Frodo could not tell.

Whatever had happened on a set of battlements so long ago, it was clear to Frodo that it had wreaked its havoc on the dwarf before him. Whatever his crime, he had borne its price, and borne it over again.

* * *

When Frodo found Bilbo that evening, he was shocked to see how much older Bilbo looked. He finally looked, almost, his age of 128 years. His hair had gone white, and he leaned on a cane.

"Come now," the old hobbit said. "I have some things for you." And Bilbo brought out his short-sword, Sting, and then fished out a small, carefully wrapped package from an out-of-the-way shelf.

When Bilbo opened it, Frodo was almost blinded by the pearly white sheen of it. It was a chain-mail shirt in the same way, Frodo supposed, the Arkenstone must have been like any other jewel.

"It's beautiful," Frodo said.

"Mithril! Light as a feather, and as hard as dragon scales!"

"Uncle…. Where did you get this?"

Bilbo's face faltered. "Thorin Oakenshield gave it to me, on my adventure."

Frodo paused. "You still miss him," he muttered, "don't you?"

"Of course I miss him," he said. "He was my friend and a dear one at that. And the only one I'd ever have been able to call King."

Frodo watched a series of emotions flit by on Bilbo's face, none of which he could identify properly. Longing, perhaps, then fury, then sorrow, settling on the warm pride of an uncle for a nephew.

"Well," Bilbo said, "You'll have to take my own mathoms with you on your own adventure. Perhaps that's the way of things."

Frodo stepped forward and hugged the old hobbit to his chest. Bilbo was tall for a hobbit, but age had shrunk him, and Frodo had always been taller still. At the hug, Bilbo burst into tears.

"I'm sorry, dear boy," he sobbed. "Sorry for everything."

Frodo let Bilbo weep. Tears stung his own eyes as he said, "I met him today, Uncle."

"Who? Elrond?"

"No. I met Thorin Oakenshield."

Bilbo went very still in Frodo's arms, then pulled himself up to look in Frodo's eyes. There was a long silence.

"Kili told you, then," Bilbo said. "All those years ago at my eleventy-first birthday party."

"Yes."

"And you never understood why, in my stories, I always said Thorin had died in battle."

"No, I never did."

"And if I told you it was none of your business?"

"Then I'd tell you I'm still a nosy fauntling, even if I'm fifty years old." Frodo's lips twitched. "And that for a hobbit historian, that makes for a lousy job."

Bilbo's face twisted in a horrible shadow of old pain.

"I'm sorry, uncle."

"Don't be," Bilbo said in a very small voice. "I always knew this day would come. Stories, you see, always lie about something. Every storyteller has to know what to leave in and what to leave out. Just enough to keep a story interesting, you see. Can't get bogged down in details or too light with the words. But then, every author has something to hide, something a story reveals."

"What, uncle?"

"Their heart," Bilbo sniffled. "And Thorin was dear to mine. In those early years, when I was just beginning to earn the name Mad Baggins, I still could not face what Thorin had done to me, and what I had done to him in turn. I wronged my friend when I tried to save his life, and the lives of all I held dear, but how could I forgive him when I still bore the bruises from his wrath?

"So I left. I left the mountain. Fled it, it fact, staying the winter with Beorn at the foot of the Misty Mountains. It took me many years before I could even think of Thorin without remembering just the greed-crazed look in his eyes when he realized I had taken the Arkenstone and given it to his enemies. I can remember his kindness now. I couldn't then.

"So when I told the story, I made Thorin a dead man. I could forgive a dead man, no matter how many bruises I still felt around my heart."

Silence.

"But why kill Fili and Kili? In your story I mean?"

"You've not met Fili," Bilbo said with a drawn smile. "He was only eighty-two then, which is old for a hobbit or a man but young for a dwarf. He was nowhere near ready to be king. Even in my head I couldn't call him King Fili. Even less could I imagine his brother in that role. But I had met Dain Ironfoot. Solid man, short even for a dwarf but nerves of steel. I could think of him as a king, though I'm sure he would be horrified if he knew."

Silence. Frodo's arms were still around his uncle.

"Thorin is here," Frodo said softly. "He gave the crown to Fili, he said."

Bilbo stiffened. "He did what?"

"He gave up his crown."

"Hmpf," Bilbo muttered. "Did he say where his rooms were? Never mind, I'm sure they put him up where they put us before…"

And, belying his advanced age, the old hobbit grabbed his cane and strode purposefully out of his rooms, into the hallway, and down a corridor. Frodo hopped after him.

Bilbo made his way to a courtyard between a series of rooms – dwarf-sized, judging by the height of the doors, and wasn't that an interesting sight in an Elvish stronghold – to find Thorin Oakenshield sitting on an overstuffed armchair, puffing away on his pipe. Said pipe-puffing stopped abruptly when the dwarf saw the two hobbits.

"You," Bilbo said simply.

"You," Thorin said back.

Silence.

Bilbo coughed. "I said, when I wasn't hurting anymore and when you weren't the same man who had hurt me, I'd know that I had could forgiven you."

Thorin nodded. "Yes, you said that." There was a pause as Thorin took a deep breath. "Have you forgiven me, then?"

"Well," Bilbo shifted from foot to foot and tapped at the cobblestones with his stick, "I'm not hurting anymore, and you're not the king anymore. I don't think my forgiveness is even necessary anymore, is it? Though I'm not sure how I feel about you abdicating, considering that I riddled with a dragon to get you back your throne."

Silence. Then, Thorin began to make an odd coughing, hacking sound.

It took Frodo a few moments to realize it was laughter.

It took Frodo a few longer moments to realize he was laughing too. And Bilbo.

And then Thorin swept the smaller hobbit into a huge hug. "I've been waiting to hear that for so long. Perhaps even all my life."

If either of them were weeping, Frodo wasn't going to mention it to them.

It wasn't going to be perfect, Frodo knew. These two, dwarf and hobbit, had known each other very well for a very harrowing six months' journey across Middle-Earth, hurt each other terribly, and then did not speak for eighty years. But they were at least talking now.

Perhaps that would be enough.

* * *

A/N: I always thought Thorin's death was cruel of Tolkien, but perhaps letting the character live would have required that he atone for his behavior under the influence of his greed and cruelty. This oneshot was an exploration of that authorial kindness or lack thereof, though I must note that Tolkien was Catholic, and I am not, and his ideas of forgiveness were not mine. Thus, they are not here, and mine are.


End file.
